The Terrible History Thread

[say1988]

I agree. In my opinion, even today, essentially everybody is bigotted. It is natural to generalize and to be hostile to outsiders. It is up to the individual to work to minimize it, but I seriously doubt anyone is perfect, I sure as hell am not.

[Traitorfish]

It's less "everyone's a little bit racist" and more "the Northern United States c.1860 represent an intensely racialised society in which white supremacism was thoroughly institutionalised".

[say1988]

But it is less "Northern United States" then the entirety of the World (replacing "white" with the locals where applicable). It may have been less blatant is Europe, but that would simply be because there were less funny looking people. It is the same today, but to a lesser degree in many places.

[Oda Nobunaga]

Originally Posted by Luckymoose

Much better. To think that some, and not most, northerners, westerners or white people in general at the time were racist is silly. White people were racist against other white people. I'm not defending slavery, but I am defending that just about everyone was a dirty racist. Even today most white people freak out if their daughter or sister or mother hooks up with a black guy. All part of the system, mang, all part of the system. And let's not even mention the Native Americans or Chinese.

True enough. The point of my statement was more to clarify that I wasn't trying to say they were not. They were.

But yes, most everyone else was toward most every other everyone else back then.

And yes, definitely the natives. There's a reason the whole "BAWWWW the king doesn't want us stealing native lands anymore!" part of the reasoning for US independence fails to impress me...hard. (Not that anyone else treated the natives significantly better. Just the others didn't use "we want to steal native lands" as part of justification for a revolution).

[Traitorfish]

Originally Posted by say1988

But it is less "Northern United States" then the entirety of the World (replacing "white" with the locals where applicable). It may have been less blatant is Europe, but that would simply be because there were less funny looking people. It is the same today, but to a lesser degree in many places.

I don't think that Jews and Italians would have appeared physically alien to Northern whites, so a series of individual aversions to people who look different seems pretty insufficient as an explanation of Northern racism. It certainly doesn't explain how this stuff became as institutionalised, extensive and as durable as it did.

[ParkCungHee]

I go away for like, a week, without internet, and this happens to my lovely thread.

[_random_]

Yeah, you really need to stop doing that.

[Plotinus]

Originally Posted by Luckymoose

Even today most white people freak out if their daughter or sister or mother hooks up with a black guy.

Are you serious?

[Azale]

Originally Posted by Plotinus

Are you serious?

He is not. I see the same thing among white people and hispanics down here.


We should go onto something else though! I've got some bad history:

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a weird idolatrous cult.

Yes, this is blatant Plotinus bait.

[classical_hero]

Don't forget that the English once called the Irish as "white chimps". Show what they thought of the Irish.

[Lord Baal]

Originally Posted by classical_hero

Don't forget that the English once called the Irish as "white chimps". Show what they thought of the Irish.

This makes me really want to see that fantastic image that someone - PCH? - posted from an old science book, describing the Irish as being "descended from Iberians and the natives, who themselves are believed to have been of low-type, having been isolated from other races and therefore never having the benefit of the healthy struggle for life" or somesuch. It was awesome.

[Traitorfish]

This fella?

[_random_]

Originally Posted by Azale

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a weird idolatrous cult.

Along those lines, most things claiming that Christian veneration of Saint X is really just a fresh coat of paint on pagan worship of god Y. That has happened in a few ways in a few cultures, but it's certainly not the foundation of the practice like some would have you believe.

Even more absurd is the claim that Christianity is just a slightly Judaized version of the Horaic or Mithraic mysteries.

[Lord Baal]

Originally Posted by Traitorfish

This fella?

I love that image. Mostly for the text.

[GoodSarmatian]

Originally Posted by _random_

Along those lines, most things claiming that Christian veneration of Saint X is really just a fresh coat of paint on pagan worship of god Y. That has happened in a few ways in a few cultures, but it's certainly not the foundation of the practice like some would have you believe.

Well, it is true in some instances.
A traditional Serbian religious holiday is Vidovdan which could be translated as Vid's day (or Saint Vid's day).
There is no St.Vid or Sveti Vid as he would be called in Serbian. There is however Svantovit, a pagan slavic god of war with a supiciously similar name. Considering how many serbian religious holidays are associated with obscure 'saints', it's generally accepted that many of them are re-paints of old slavic deities.

[_random_]

There is, however, a St. Vitus, whose name could be translated into St. Vid. It wouldn't surprise me if the particular customs of his veneration in Serbia retain some elements of pagan practice, but people who claim that the general practice of veneration of saints developed as backdoor polytheism really don't have anything to back it up from my experience.

[Traitorfish]

I wonder how much of that comes from seeing syncretising processes in America, Africa and Asia and assuming that something similar must have happened in Europe?

[Louis XXIV]

That plus a long Mediterranean tradition of syncretism. There's a pretty solid Christian explanation that doesn't need this theory and the theory is usually used for anti-Catholic rhetoric, but I at least could see where one could get the idea.

[Dachs]

Originally Posted by Louis XXIV

That plus a long Mediterranean tradition of syncretism. There's a pretty solid Christian explanation that doesn't need this theory and the theory is usually used for anti-Catholic rhetoric, but I at least could see where one could get the idea.

Applying Hellenistic understandings of deities to those of unlettered Serbs a millennium and a half hence seems more than a little outrageous.

[Traitorfish]

Retrospectively preposterous history is pretty much par for the course when it comes the 18th century, isn't it?